Hanwood is a large village in Shropshire, England. It is located SW of Shrewsbury town centre, on the A488 road. The A5 is only a mile away. The Cambrian Line runs through the village but there is no longer a railway station here. It was closed in 1964, as a result of the Beeching Axe. The nearest working passenger station is at Shrewsbury. The Rea Brook flows through the village and the village is laid along the floor of a small valley. The village forms the main of the civil parish of Great Hanwood. Etymology It is thought Hanwood derives its name from the Teutonic word "Han" or "Hane", meaning "cock", denoting a large number of woodcock living in what were then extensive woods of the vicinity. In the Domesday Book of 1086, it is named "Hanewde". Village facilities Hanwood has a small combined post office and shop, a garage (but no longer a petrol station), a pub (The Cock Inn), and a primary school, named St. Thomas' & St. Anne's C. of E., which serves an area previously covered by schools at Cruckmeole and Lea Cross as well as Hanwood itself. There are three Royal Mail post boxes at different points along the A488 in the centre of the village. Hanwood's Village hall was originally built in 1938 as the Pavilion for the social use of miners then working at the former Hanwood Colliery and it has been extended or refurbished a number of times since it was given to the Hanwood Parish Council. Parish church The oldest part of the Church of England parish church of St Thomas, a Grade II Listed Building, is a circular Norman font and a priest of Hanwood is recorded as early as 1277. The chiefly red brick nave-and-chancel church was rebuilt in 1701, and reconstructed in 1856 by Shrewsbury architect John Laurence Randal, who rebuilt the south wall of the nave, extended the nave westwards, and added the north porch, vestry and tiled timber bellcote. There is stone masonry at the foundation level that may have come from the mediaeval church and the east window frame in the chancel apse has some 15th-century masonry. The stained glass windows in the chancel and one of the others in the nave, were installed in 1856 by Shrewsbury glass-stainers David and Charles Evans. Besides a painted wooden war memorial plaque listing parish dead of both